Role And Dynamics Of Late Comers In The Global Technology Competition

Faster developing cycles and economic developments created many emerging economies in the 20th century. For sustainable economic growth, however, the construction and constant preservation of a profound knowledge base and technological pool is crucial. Brazil, China, India and Russia, experienced constant high economic growth rates and begun to evolve to solid economies which are challenging the established players. This book consists of a profound empirical analysis of these emerging economies.

There is broad consensus that universities play a key role as knowledge platform in regional economic development. This book exactly picks up this line of thought and explores the role of the German universities in a system of joint knowledge generation and innovation. The overall aim of this book is to provide new insight into the German universities' behavioural patterns regarding their knowledge generation, innovation and collaboration function.

This book tackles the different aspects of the creation and transmission of knowledge in the context of the characteristics of a general purpose technology. Nanotechnology is investigated as showcase example. Particular emphasis is put on the role of the composition of knowledge as well as the corresponding knowledge spillovers on the one hand and on the concrete impact of collaboration and knowledge sharing in innovator networks on the other hand.

Drawing on the example of late-developing countries, especially from East Asia, catching up with established powers, the authors address a new formulation of industrial policy for latecoming, semi-industrialized countries. With contributions from some of the best-known economists currently working in this area, the book will be a valuable guide for economists and international policy-makers interested in development issues.

Ever since Schumpeter’s groundbreaking work there has been a plethora of new research seeking to extend the direction and dynamics of innovation. Using a rich account of detailed interviews, this book offers new evidence on how latecomers have successfully caught up and leapfrogged incumbent firms. Catching Up and Leapfrogging: the new latecomers in the integrated circuits industry explores how technological transitions affect latecomer catch-up strategies, and vice versa, in a high technology industry. It looks to the East Asian latecomers who, towards the end of the twentieth century, pioneered a new pathway through organizational change by specializing in the key production stages of integrated circuits and pushing technologies further. This volume assesses how latecomer resource acquisition strategies have varied alongside structural industry changes and evaluates the mechanisms through which firms started life as technology followers and rose to become technology leaders. Xiao-Shan Yap and Rajah Rasiah present a unique story about how firm strategies evolve from the catching up phase to the leapfrogging phase, captured from the accounts of managers on the ground. It is the first time firm-level strategies have been systematically analysed to describe twenty-first century strategic management in the integrated circuits industry in particular, and the high tech industry in general. The evidence and analysis in this book offers insights for chief executive officers, policy-makers and researchers to revisit existing approaches to the theory of catching up and leapfrogging.

Productivity of inputs is an important determinant of the competitiveness of firms in national and international markets. Productivity growth arises from deliberate decisions to innovate but the technological opportunities could be such that different inputs would have different rates of growth. Previous literature has mostly concentrated on labor productivity but empirical studies indicate that productivity of capital is also increasing. One of the objectives of this book is to examine the difference or bias in the productivity growth of the two inputs. In this book, application of this general approach to study of biased technical change is developed and new empirical results presented for both macroeconomies and microeconomic firms.

Research on the international transfer of technology in economics and management literature has primarily focused on the role of countries and that of companies, in particular multinational enterprises (MNEs). Similarly, economic and business historians have tended to view international technology transfer as a way for economically ‘backward’ countries to acquire new technologies in order to catch up with more developed economies. This volume provides a more in-depth understanding of how the international transfer of technologies is organized and, in particular, challenges the core-periphery model that is still dominant in the extant literature. By looking beyond national systems of innovation, and statistics on foreign trade, patent registration and foreign direct investment, the book sheds more light on the variety of actors involved in the transfer process (including engineers, entrepreneurs, governments, public bodies, firms, etc.) and on how they make use of a broad set of national and international institutions facilitating technology transfer. Put differently, the volume offers a better understanding of the complexity of global technology flows by examining the role and actions of the different actors involved. By bringing together a number of original case studies covering many different countries over the period from the late 19th to the 21st century, the book demonstrates how technology is being transferred through complex processes, involving a variety of actors from several countries using the national and international institutional frameworks.

The book has three main objectives. Firstly, to provide an up-dated analysis of the most important theoretical developments, secondly, to present significant empirical verifications and thirdly, to assess the micro-macro debate and the relations which link the market structure to the function of the economic system.

This book examines the spectacularly successful economies of East Asia, Japan and South Korea. The comparison of the 'catching-up' process in Japan and South Korea includes studies of the iron and steel and semi-conductor industries. The author shows the difficulties involved in trying to detect general patterns of development, as both countries appear to respond to different technological imperatives. As a result general models of development should be treated with caution, given the need to consider different historical and institutional contexts.